Friday, March 18, 2011

The knitted detective

“For fans of The Killing, BBC4's tense Danish thriller currently airing on Saturday night, there's only question bigger than whodunnit: "Why does Sarah Lund always wear that thick patterned jumper? And also, of course, where can I get one from?"Now, happily, the first mystery can be, erm, unravelled. Sofie Gråbøl, the actor who plays Lund in the show, laughs delightedly at the idea of British fans becoming obsessed with the detective's jumper. Danish viewers also went crazy for it. " Everybody wanted that sweater," she says. "The company in the Faroe Islands couldn't keep up."It was Gråbøl who decided upon Lund's attire: "We had a costume meeting and I saw that sweater and thought: 'That's it!'," she says, despite the jumper being decidedly unpolice-like. "The reason it's so perfect is because it tells so many stories. It tells of a person who doesn't use her sexuality – that's a big point. Lund's so sure of herself she doesn't have to wear a suit. She's at peace with herself."The knitwear also has personal memories for the actor, who was brought up in the 70s in a very hippy-like environment in Copenhagen. "I wore this sweater and so did my parents. That sweater was a sign of believing in togetherness. There's a nice tension between those soft, human values and Lund being a very tough closed person – because to me it says that she's wanting to sit around a fire with a guitar; it gives a great opposite to her line of work and behaviour."